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...Definatley the song of the tour...when everyone was sleeping on the bus and this song came on you can guarantee everyone would wake up (or open one eye at least) to see Gregs impression of Skippy hopping across the front of the bus!!
Well we survived...18 days of camping in West Australia and now we're here in Darwin!
The second part of the tour we had to say bye to the girls (and their lovely cups of tea!) and Jim too. They were replaced by Dina,Nina, Koari, Wiesia, Mike, Tony, Peter and Margaret.
We were planning on travelling along the Gibb river road and seeing the Mitchell plateau and falls and other places along the way but unfortunatley due to the wet season just ending the road was closed! They even showed us the signs to prove it!! so change of route along the highway...
First up was the boab prison tree which was on route to our first camp at Winjana gorge (theres alot of gorges in western australia!). Here we saw our first freshies (fresh water crocodiles) even nat dipped her toes in the water just to get a clear photo of them! After our incident with the
bites on the first leg our dome tents with the mozzie nets came out so no just swagging it for us now!!
The second day brought Tunnel Creek, our buzz lightyear and disney princess torches (bargains at only $2 with batteries!!) impressed us with actually lighting up our path as we walked through the dark tunnel and the bats above our heads!! That night we were spoilt by having a proper campsite with showers and flushing toilets and everything!! (the second group just didnt relise how spoilt they were!) We also had electricity!! its amazing how many electrical items you actually need on a camping trip and i thought we were going to blow the whole campsite with the amount of extension cables and chargers we all had!! We had a swim in a pool too, i managed to graze my leg on the way in, to add this to the bites on my legs they were really looking at their most attractive at this point in the trip!! (i think not!).
next we had a river boat cruise on the Geike gorge, this was supposed to be yesterday but with the way the trip was going we werent surprised that the itinery had changed yet again!! it was boiling hot and my nose was certaintly a bit pink!
This was the day that i won the music quiz i guessed the artists and songs right for 14 out of 30!! thats how bad we all were at music quizzes! i just have my bestest brother in law to thank for me winning, as many years ago he bought me the aqua album and yes one of their songs did feature!! Camped by the Ord river that night, had a campfire but was a bit too warm for toasted marshmallows.
Day four took us to the bungle bungles (no zippy or george or any connection with Rainbow though!!) these are a mountain range. We had a very bumpy ride to them but it was worth it, we walked through Ecidna Chasm gorge and mini Palms gorge (the australians name things very simply so guess what was at mini palm gorge...yep lots of mini palms!!) It was really hot and usually if someone pours cold water down your back i would not be happy but when Murray did it...it was just perfect timing i was slightly looking like a beetroot!!
we watched the sunset over the Bungles which was gorgeous or lovely as i keep saying...really should find a better word . we had a bit of didgeridoo playing that night..although i am really bad and just make rude noises mostly!!
day 5 brought the helicopter flights over the Bungles, Nat was very brave and went up without me as i decided i may need some food on the rest of the trip and should really save some money, but from the reports i got it was amazing and everyone who went up really enjoyed it.
our last day in the bungles we went to Cathedral gorge and did a walk around the domes. The plastic snake that appeared on the first half of the trip reappeared,,,this time however the other tour group actually stopped to take photos of it!!
Day 6 took us to our Kunnurnarra (completly wrong spelling!!) this would be home til the end of our trip, its amazing how quickly you can make a tent your own...i couldnt get into my sleeping bag the first night as my things were just everywhere..nevermind . we went to Wyndam to the five river look out and the crocodile farm where we saw our first salties!! they are huge!! and i mean huge...just massive!!! Definatly stops you from going swimming in the sea up here!! What i found strange was when we were going round the croc farm someone had actually taken their small white fluffy dog...to a crocodile farm...one wiggle and it could have been a nasty sight ...it did survive however.
we had lunch at Parry Lagoons surrounded by water lillies and we also had a rather large guest in the shape of a huntsman spider!! that was big...but with the plastic snakes incidents it did take me a while to see if it actually was real and when it crawled along with its long spidery legs i knew it was real..erghh! Had a swim in a billabong too that day.
At the campsite on the night there were loads of flying foxes (big bats) it was really weird to see, everything seems really big in westerm austraia...even the bats! Also at the campsite were the crocs on the lake...so when it got dark we set off with our buzz and princess torches (and the big one for back up!!) to see if we could see eyes in the river...sure enough the first sweep of the torch lit up two red eyes swimming off...a freshy crocodile!! We saw a few after we saw that one and it was a bit frightening really knowing crocodiles were that close but they were onluy freshies and apparently they aren't as aggressive so it was fine . I just thought about all the teeth they still had though...hmm not somewhere id be going for a swim!!
day seven we crossed over the border to the Northern Territory to see some aboriginal rock art and we went to the Keep River national park. We also saw Lake Arglye and went for a well needed swim...Murray waited until we were all in the water to tell us lake argyls had 25 000 fresh water crocodiles in it!! no one was touching the bottom of the lake that day!! We had a safe swim though but as we were leaving over the other side of the dam from where we had just been a crocodile was happily swimmming across the water!!! So i guess i can say i survived a swim in croc invested waters!! after that we went to a zebra rock gallery...dangerous business so many girls (who hadnt done much shopping for a while)...a credit card machine..and lovely necklaces!! (im wearing my purchase now ) I also had a go at picking grapefruit...it involves a large hook a duck stick and hooking the grapefruit and just timing it right so you dont get hit on the head!! (my many years of hook a duck practice at Yarm fair helped me here).
So that was that, 18 days coast to Kimberley gone so quickly, we had a brilliant time and meet loads of nice people, Murray and Greg were really good guides and we couldnt have asked for anything more , and with the bits we didnt get to see well we've just got an excuse to come back now.....
Sorry but im having problems with my photos...will try to put them on but its not working just yet...sorry.... x x ....Sorry again about the photos, i tried to put some on but it was the slowest computer ever!!!!! xx
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